News

November 5 -- Maintenance and capital costs for wind energy have continued to drop in recent years, according to a recent report. Bloomberg New Energy Finance notes that, for onshore wind projects, operation and maintenance (O&M) costs have declined dramatically from €30,906 per megawatt (MW) in 2008 to €19,200/MW in 2012, a decrease of just over 11% a year, or a total of 38% for the period as a whole. >>View Article

November 5 -- In a year rife with strife, the solar power industry in the United States continued to chug along. The nonprofit Solar Foundation reported on Friday that the U.S. industry added 13,872 employees in the year ended in September, a 13.2 percent increase that brought total domestic employment to 119,016. >>View Article

November 5 -- Wind energy construction continues to increase across the U.S., with Texas leading the nation in new wind energy construction, according to the American Wind Energy Association, local wind energy education programs are growing in popularity. >>View Article

November 2 -- Automakers operate on a different calendar, in which the 2012 model year recently came to a close. As my colleague, Luke Tonachel, explains, this was the year of the green car, with record new fleet fuel efficiency, a 55 percent increase in hybrid sales, and more than a three-fold increase in plug-in electric car sales. >>View Article

November 2 -- The cost of running and maintaining wind farms has fallen 38 percent in four years as competition among contractors increased and turbine performance improved, bringing closer the day that the technology matches fossil fuel. >>View Article

November 2 -- During the last few days of the election, when politicians scramble to make promises about jobs and the economy, only a fool would ignore this statistic: employment in the solar industry has grown 13.2 percent over the last year. >>View Article

November 2 -- They're some of the country's most important environmental activists, poised to change the way we create, consume and conceive of energy. But you won't find this cadre of green preachers on a college campus, or emceeing the Sierra Club's annual meeting. You'll find them, clad in blazers and pantsuits, pushing their agenda behind the guarded walls of the Pentagon. >>View Article

November 1 -- An out-of-the-lab solar-power system has successfully shown it can convert more than a third of the sun’s direct sunlight into electricity, a new record for a technology that focuses sunlight akin to the way school kids burn leaves and ants under magnifying glasses. >>View Article

November 1 -- When a tour of duty is complete, transitioning back into the civilian workforce can be daunting. Now, thanks to a unique partnership between two regional non-profit organizations and USDA Rural Development (RD) finding jobs is going to be a little easier for veterans returning to West Tennessee. >>View Article

November 1 -- It appears to be solar energy’s time to shine. Further solar energy development is supported by 92 percent of U.S. voters, according to a CleanEnergyAuthority.com article. The poll was conducted by Hart Research for the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). >>View Article